Diablo 4was perhaps Blizzard’s most exciting announcement of BlizzCon 2019, with the developer not only revealing the game’s existence, by way of a a stunning cinematic trailer, but also sharing a surprising amount of gameplay. There was even a playable demo available at BlizzCon that featuredDiablo 4’s first three classes: Sorcerer, Druid, and Barbarian. However, one particularly interesting aspect of the game went a bit underrepresented, its open-world bosses, but luckily that has been remedied with a newDiablo 4gameplay video.
In theDiablo 4BlizzCon gameplay teaser trailer, a brief encounter with a boss named Ashava, the Pestilent is shown. This boss is unique, in that it’s not an elite boss and not a story boss, instead serving as an open-world boss, which is part ofDiablo 4’s new open-world design. These open-world bosses can be encountered withinDiablo 4’s explorable area, and they offer a unique and challenging battle experience. These fights are so big that they can even be tackled by up to 8 players, though difficulty will scale to the number of players involved.
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Game Informer, as part of its exclusive access toDiablo 4, put together a video showcasing what one of these encounters look like with the maximum number of players. Judging from the party layout, it looks like the Game Informer players are in a group of three, and fiveBlizzard employeesare arranged into their own party or parties. Together, they tackle Ashava, the Pestilent in the hopes of defeating it and claiming its impressive loot.
The gameplay video is surprisingly chaotic, with Ashava swinging its bladed arms and nearly defeating players in a single attack. Luckily, dying in the demo leads to to a quick respawn, and the group eventually dwindles down Ashava, through sheer brute force, and is rewarded a range ofDiablo 4loot.
This footage is interesting in that it offers a glimpse at what 8-player co-op actually looks like inDiablo 4. It also shows Blizzard’s interest in exploring new forms of endgame content forDiablo4, and huge open-world bosses that have scripted actions and drop meaningful rewards will definitely add to the experience. Furthermore, it could hint at something larger that Blizzard is planning and hopefully the developer shares more information about these plans, andDiablo 4’s bosses, over the coming year.
Diablo 4has no current release window but is planned for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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